Sunday, November 27, 2011

I thought this looked so Christmas-y. I'm not sure what kind of tree it is. But I figured we're in the holiday window now.

I got my first Christmas card in the mail yesterday. I know I'm being a Bah! Humbug, but, really? The person who sent it must have mailed it pre-Thanksgiving. Who is that organized?

I avoided the malls this long weekend. I haven't been to a mall in quite some time - ever since I got pick-pocketed at one of the super malls (but that is another story and I think I've already told that story.)

Tomorrow is pot-luck lunch at work for a poor unfortunate person who was born on November 28th. I'll be making my famous Chili and Corn Bread. If they don't turn out, there's always pizza delivery. . .

PS - I'm realizing quite a few of my posts seem to deal with food. Ha! Or should I say Ho! Ho! Ho!?

After our dim sum lunch, we had to rest up/nap for the second of our Thanksgiving meals at my brother-in-law's sister's home. The home was so beautifully decorated that I went around like a looky-loo and snapped photos of everything.

Yeah, I know, odd behaviour for a guest but I do it all for you, dear readers. Plus it saves me from having to interact with people (lol!)

Something set off the fire alarm. I think it may have been all the candles. The fire department showed up. I believe this happened last time too. Oh well, it added some excitement to the evening.

There were twelve of us at the main table. There was another table of four, but it wasn't a kiddie table. No, part of the family is Orthodox Jewish so they cannot eat the same food, nor even sit at the same table. Still, they want to celebrate family and give thanks so they bring their own food and drink, and utensils and even their own plates, and we talk and eat together across the tables.

Here is the turkey. Yeah, they started carving before I could even get a good photo. It was yummy. Not dry like when I make it.

And of course, the main event, dessert! Apple pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, flan, cupcakes, ice cream. After the L-tryptophan was blamed for the food coma, the younger ones did Dance Off and then we all watched "Bridesmaids" and headed home.

I don't have a ton of relatives. At least not in the U.S. For many years my Mom, Dad, sister and I would get Chinese food on Thanksgiving and Christmas. The turkey was just too much food and nobody really liked the hassle.

In keeping with tradition, we went to Empress Pavillion for dim sum Thanksgiving Day. Empress Pavillion is well-known as THE place to get dim sum in China Town. It is really traditional, with the ladies pushing the carts around up and down the aisles.

Usually, it is at least an hour wait just to get seated. But because it was Thanksgiving, we walked right in, no wait!

The great thing about the carts is that you don't need to speak the language, you can just point to whatever you want to eat.

Although, if you're not careful, you end up with six shrimp dishes, chicken's feet, or jellyfish. It is best to have someone who speaks Chinese with you.

We went with our cousin who was in town with her boyfriend to see The Cure concert(s). We tried to eat light because we all had the traditional version of Thanksgiving to go to. But alas, there was too much temptation to resist stuffing ourselves. And then we went home to rest up for the next meal.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Today I decided I would work on pacing. I got the idea from Maggie Stiefvater's blog. Revision part III (see link). I'm saving the hard stuff for the long Thanksgiving weekend. But you basically write each scene on an index card and then you can shuffle them around if your pacing is off.

I have a ton of index cards stuffed in a closet somewhere so I plan to go look for them/dig them out. That'll probably take longer than doing the scene thing.
I think maybe you can do it on the computer in an excel chart, but the index card thing sound fun!

Monday, November 21, 2011

Description From Amazon
The Burn is full of nuclear fallout, roving gangs, anarchy, unreliable plumbing. That's what Terra's father tells her. She has lived her whole life in comfort in a colony at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. She hates it. And she would pay any price to leave. But when Terra finally escapes the colony, she finds out her father is right. She finds a group of survivors that quickly become friends, and every day with them is a race for survival. But then she witnesses and commits unspeakable acts, and she must decide where her loyalty lies: with the colony she despises or The Burn, where every day is filled with nightmares.

My thoughts:

Writing: First off, I enjoyed reading it and think you will too. I'm giving it 4 out of 5 stars. The writing is good. Easy to read, flows seamlessly, tight. There were a few typos but not enough to distract. I enjoyed reading the entire thing, even once I figured out this was the retelling of XXXX. I'm not giving it away, but underwater girl saves land boy from drowning... Worlds: After WWIII and nuclear contamination, there are underwater 'colonies' where Terra has grown up, and the ravaged land that used to be the U.S., (The Burn) which, according to the adults around her, is full of anarchy. Both worlds are described in believable, dystopic, big-brother-is-watching detail. You get a clear sense of what life is like in each. The Colony sounds like the better of the two choices, but still, there is something in Terra that longs for the wild anarchy of The Burn.

Quibbles:

This is a YA Dystopic story/fantasy. The title is unfortunate in that it is kind of generic. I wish it had a better title which reflected the engaging story.

The story is from Terra's POV. We understand and come to love her. But there are some things that could be explained more fully: mainly, her motivation for wanting to give up everything to live on The Burn. It isn't quite enough to make me accept the sacrifice she makes in exchange for life ashore (it is a doozy).
The other characters are less well developed. The love interest, Dave - you don't really get a look into what makes him tick. Same with Gaea (can't get over what she does).

There is one scene of mutilation in particular with Terra and Gaea that I couldn't get over, no matter how much it got glossed over, no blood, no pain, nothing but still, it was horrific and stays with me. More horrific than when Terra shoots someone later on.

I was a bit disappointed at the end when I realized it was a book in a series. I don't care for the non-ending ending. But I'll be buying Book #2 (which is high praise from me).

And then I printed it out. So instead of 257 pages, it is now 237 pages.

I then collected all the critique partner notes and transferred them into the manuscript. My thinking - I have a critique partner and several critique groups I go to. I figured I'd get all the notes down and do all the changes at once. Also, it is a good time to see if what some people say needs fixing is fine with other people. If more than one person says it, you know it is a real problem (caveat: it is YOUR work. You have veto power! Don't give in if you feel strongly about something). It was good to go through all the notes because you get a good overall sense of what works, what doesn't and what your weakness(es) is/are.

But I did a bad thing when I was tranferring the notes. I read the work beginning to end. And I realized I have a lot more fixing to do beyond the critique partner notes.

So I went around and read what I could find on how writers revise/edit and decided to do my own series of posts as well (since everyone seems to have their own method). Mine I'm just making up as I go along. I'll tell you if I think I wasted my time. So here's my 'Day One':

1) Format for ease of editor/reviewer to read. (I should probably do this at the end next time, but it cut 20 pages off of what I printed so it was an eco-friendly thing... ha!)

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Being the trend-savvy individual that I am, I went to see "Breaking Dawn" today. Unlike years past, I did not wait two hours in line in the hot San Diego sun to get into Hall H at ComiCon to get my first look at the cast. Nor did I wait an hour and a half in line upstairs to get my "Twilight" poster signed by the cast and Stephenie Meyer. Nor did I camp out over the weekend so I could scream and shout at the stars as they made their way into the Nokia Theater for the premiere.

No, I very maturely bought my tickets the day before online and went to the ArcLight where there is reserved seating. Because the prices are higher, there aren't as many screaming girls so one can actually hear the words being spoken and there are no torn eardrums everytime Jacob appears shirtless onscreen. (Does the kid own a shirt?)

Anyway, the movie was very enjoyable. The wedding was gorgeous!!! The dress was gorgeous. And the Cullens and Bella were, well, gorgeous! Very true to the book. And hopefully you stayed for the little scene at the end after the credits? Gorgeous Jamie Campbell Bower...
All in all an enjoyable 114 minutes.

Friday, November 18, 2011

300+ book blog site are having a blog fest of drawings to give away free stuff! Enter all or as many as you like. It is the Gratitude Giveaway and it is hosted by "I'm A Reader Not a Writer". Here is a link to her post and it has the links to all the other blogs.

It ends 11/27 so hurry and sign up for the ones you like (or all of them?)

Thursday, November 17, 2011

It is embarassing the number of versions of Jane Eyre I've watched in this lifetime. The other night I went to a screening of the most recent (so far as I know) 2011 version staring Mia Wasikowska (Alice) as Jane and Michael Fassbender as Rochester.

a) It was beautiful! Cinematography, costume design, lighting was all so pretty!
b) The "Gothic" was there. The original gothic romance. And they got that part right. The ominous quality of the moors, the darkness of the candle-lit rooms, the scariness of the woman screaming in the castle. Exactly right.
c) the order of the scenes. The director changed it up a little, starting at the point where Jane has run away and ends up on the Minister St. John Rivers doorstep, telling the rest in flashback. It didn't detract from the story any and gave more depth to the second half of the story.

You'll notice I didn't start out raving about the actors/actresses. The two lead didn't seem to have any chemistry. Not a good thing. I know they are 30something and 18 in the book but still -- it has to be believable for the rest to make sense.

﻿Anyway, since we live so close to Hollywood, we stayed for a Q&A with the director Cary F. and the lead actress Mia W. And that was so great because Cary explained his thought process in the decisions he made (the scene order, the quiet of the movie, the dark of the movie, capturing the gothic tone)

And Mia talked about making hand puppets with Judi Dench. Very funny.

Of course, cameras were not allowed so I was not able to capture anything visually for you. But the whole Q&A will be up soon at this site:

If you click on the link, you can get more info but here is the info from the website:

Harry's story began in 2007. He had problems with his eyes so after lots of visits to the opticians and the local hospital, the doctors gave him an MRI scan. Harry was told that he had a brain tumour which was inoperable as it was in a dangerous place, deep in his brain.
Harry began chemotherapy but unfortunately it didn’t work and his tumour grew. His only other option was radiotherapy. That’s when he met Robert Harley who was also having radiotherapy for a brain tumour. They had their treatment on the same day, every day for six weeks so they became very good friends.

In 2009 Robert became very ill so Harry decided to make and sell beaded bracelets to raise lots and lots of money for brain cancer research to help make him better.
Sadly four weeks into Harry’s campaign, his friend Robert died, aged just 55. Harry could no longer help Robert, but he knew that Robert was proud of him and would have supported him – he wore one of his bracelets too.
Harry had regular checkups to monitor the size of his tumour, which remained stable for two years. Unfortunately, his health took a turn for the worst in July 2011 when he developed a blood clot on the brain.
He had an emergency operation on Wednesday 10 August but he remained in a coma for over eight weeks until doctors advised Harry’s family to bring him home to rest on Friday 7 October.
Harry passed away peacefully in his mother’s arms on Saturday 8 October at 11.10pm.

So far, he’s raised nearly half a million British Pounds that he has donated to Cancer Research UK, to help them find a cure for brain tumors.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

It was a friend's belated birthday and so we went here to Osteria La Buca.I guess it is right near Paramount Studios and the Jonas Brothers have been known to show up with their various dates.

First thing - it was so very noisy (bad acoustics). We had to shout across the table at each other.

The appetizers - not much to choose from. My friend had been there before and said the portions weren't very big. So instead of an appetizer, we ordered a pizza and split it three ways. The pizza was fine, tasty, and it didn't seem very small to me.

For main course, I got a crab ravioli with a corn/butter sauce. This was TINY! The ravioli's were about an inch in length and about a half an inch across. And there were maybe 8 of them. It was yummy but so little food. I ate them one at a time because otherwise, I'd be done in 2 minutes. I am not a big eater or anything but I was still hungry afterwards.

My friend who had been there before said, 'oh, we need the bread. The bread is delicious here.' Okay. We had to ask for bread. Maybe because we had the pizza appetizer, they didn't bring bread? I don't know. Anyway, they brought the bread. It was, I swear I'm not making this up, a piece that was a three inch square. For the table. It was cold, stale, hard. (My friend said it was different from what she had). I got an inch slice. Still hungry.

"Well, thank goodness there is dessert," I said. "We'd better order two," my other friend said. Good idea. We ordered a olive oil cake and a chocolate budino with sea salt. Oh and the coffee drinkers ordered some.

The coffee came first. So bitter we couldn't drink it. The waitress offered to take it off the tab but we opted instead to dump the entire pitcher of cream into it. Still bitter.

Then the budino was the size of a shotglass and cold and hard. Is it supposed to be hard? It was like a chocolate bar with some cream and salt sprinkled on top of it.

Then the olive oil cake came. I think it was just the same bread but with olive oil and sweet lemon meringue mixed in. Maybe an inch and a half slice and 4 inch square. It was a decent size.

Then the bill came. $140 for three people, and we didn't even drink and I was still hungry.

One star - waste of time and definitely a waste of money. Don't go. Just go to McDonalds first and wait outside if you want to see someone famous.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

You know that campaigner challenge thing I kept writing those flash fiction pieces for all summer? Well, the good folks running that thing decided to collect all the stories and publish them in an e-book format. I think all three of my stories are in there. The cost for the e-book is $2.99 US dollars with all the proceeds going to a cancer charity in England. Unfortunately, the "Harry" for whom the charity is named passed away on October 8th.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Friday evenings seem to be the night I curl up with a good book. Last night I stayed up reading this one - Flat Out Love by Jessica Park.

I resisted buying this book for the longest time because of the cheesy title, even though it is high on the Amazon best-seller list. Turns out the title isn't what I thought. It is actually quite humorous considering one of the main characters is a cardboard cut-out.

Here is the description from Amazon:

Something is seriously off in the Watkins home. And Julie Seagle, college freshman, small-town Ohio transplant, and the newest resident of this Boston house, is determined to get to the bottom of it. When Julie's off-campus housing falls through, her mother's old college roommate, Erin Watkins, invites her to move in. The parents, Erin and Roger, are welcoming, but emotionally distant and academically driven to eccentric extremes. The middle child, Matt, is an MIT tech geek with a sweet side ... and the social skills of a spool of USB cable. The youngest, Celeste, is a frighteningly bright but freakishly fastidious 13-year-old who hauls around a life-sized cardboard cutout of her oldest brother almost everywhere she goes.

DialogueThe dialogue, voices of these characters is amazing! There are e-mails, facebook statuses, face to face dialogue and internal monologues all natural, authentic to age group and most of all, funny! The facebook statuses and discussions on physics and mathematics are hilarious. I wish I could write like this author!

PlotNot so good. I mean you can figure out the mystery by reading the full synopsis on Amazon. I found myself screaming (internally, of course) at the main character, Julie because she is so clueless for so much of the book. I kept wanting to skip ahead to the end but was frustrated because I bought it on kindle and there are no chapter breaks so you can't skip ahead.However, the book depicts Julie falling in love in a realistic and believable way

RomanceJust two skimpy little scenes at the end. Too little too late in my opinion. What was there was very hot and nice, though...

My rating - 3 stars out of 5 which is "liked it more than I didn't like it"

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Living in Fairview, you run into a lot of celebrities. This producer has been in the news recently for making anti-gay remarks. So I figured I'd tell you the six-degrees of separation-like story.

I was at a very posh awards ceremony at the Beverly Hilton as a last minute substitute for someone. It was only because I owned a dress suitable for such an occassion that I got to go. If you've seen any of the awards shows telecast from there, you know all the tables are round and seat about ten to twelve people?

The table I was assigned to held people from "Flags Of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima." I sat next to a very nice actor who had a big role in one of the afore mentioned films. He was very nice but I kept trying not to stare at him. Not because he was incredibly handsome (he was) but because he reminded me of someone and I couldn't think who.

Anyway, Producer was also there and he took to the podium to accept some kind of award. At which point this actor, had to leave. We all asked why, and the actor said something to the effect of "Producer is a horrible man who stole my girlfriend."Really? There wasn't even any comparison. I mean this actor was gorgeous. And the producer? Well, you can google him. I guess to each his own. This actor was so pleasant all evening, that I couldn't believe those words and they have stuck with me all these years.

And after I got home, I finally remembered that I had worked on one of this actor's first movies when he was still a kid. Oy, I felt old then, and now, well, I don't even want to think about it.

P.S. the moral of the story is always have one good formal dress ready in case you get the last minute invite. Oh, and don't be too proud to accept!

Monday, November 7, 2011

I'd never read a YA book before. Well, never in the sense that I'd read books appropriate for teens, but it was during a time that we didn't call them "YA books." And I don't recall they had their own section either.

Anyway, picked up "Twilight" because of the display that Borders had up front (yeah, I judged the book by the cover) and I was going on a long airplane ride and needed something to read.

I read the whole thing in one sitting. And then I had to tell all my office mates about it. We all bonded over it. So much so, that we all went to see the movie together on opening night, leaving hubbies, kids, pets home. And yes, we endured the "they're so old" comments in line for the movie.

On top of that, the book made me think I had it in me to write a book. Ms. Meyer made it look deceptively easy. X years later, I'm still plugging away, trying to write a book, but I thank Ms. Meyer for the dream and the dreamy hero.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

I always am afraid I'm going to become that slightly off-her-rocker old lady with twenty cats. I'm already more than slightly off-my-rocker. But honestly, just taking care of these two sweethearts is plenty. I'd be needing several industrial-strength kitty litter boxes if I got any more cats.
Charlie's on the left, Chester's on the right. Notice how well I taught them not to jump on the bed.

Something made me buy this pancake batter mix. Maybe it was the cute size (single serving). Maybe it was the ease of preparation (add water, shake). Maybe it was the thought that I hadn't had a pancake in over three years (too fattening). But this morning was the perfect day for them. It is wet and cold for Fairview and daily savings time (fall back one hour) so I was hungry.

And then I remembered my cousin from Hawaii brought me some Kona Coffee.

Bliss! My belly is full, I'm bundled up, snug as a
(well, you know, they tell writers not to be trite), and trying not to drowse off while I try to re-write the ending to novel #1 (again and hopefully for the last time)

Oh, and I'm trying to keep my mind off of these evil things that cousin also brought me.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

I've driven by many times and wondered what this building is. It is called Castle Green and it used to be the western wing of a luxury hotel. Built in 1898, it is condominiums and apartments these days. Scenes from Bugsy, The Man With Two Brains, The Sting and many episodes of Murder She Wrote were filmed here.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Today (or yesterday) now, turned out to be quite the OMG day. OMG (Oh. My. God) x 70 (approximately) was what the first e-mail I got this morning.

I may have mentioned my awesome critique partner #1. She lives outside the U.S. Anyway, we met over our love of Maggie Stiefvater. So when I heard Maggie was coming to Fairview to promote her new book "The Scorpio Races", my first thought was, to get CP#1 a signed copy. Well it took like a week+ but she finally got it this morning. And it was a bit of a surprise - thus the OMG's.

I am terrible at keeping secrets so I didn't even mention anything about it here, afraid I'd somehow leak the surprise. But , I am so eager to read this book, and the Author got a movie deal out of it just recently. She also writes a really good blog with lots of writerly tips. You can see a link to her blog on the right of my blog.

The second sets of OMGs were quite a bit different. Turns out some people I know got/will be arrested. Made the local newspaper headlines on both coasts. So

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The winners for the second campaigner challenge are up. And I feel I 'know' some of the winners! It is like when your high school basketball team wins. You admire all the players and you want to say "I know them, they go to my school!" and their win is your win? You know? So congrats to (and here are links to their stories):